As good weather brings more people outside, a city committee will be moving forward on an important goal: bringing many more people to the waterfront in the years ahead. When its work is done, the committee should produce a wealth of ideas on how the public can more readily enjoy some of the region’s most spectacular assets — the coastal and river shorelines of Everett.
One likely outcome of the shoreline public access committee’s efforts will be a plan for a bike trail that circles the north Everett peninsula. The idea was developing quietly until it gained strong public support during The Herald’s Waterfront Renaissance Project last year. And the committee, which includes the three citizens most identified with the trail, seems equally excited about a trail that hugs the city’s shores. That is a very hopeful sign for the public welfare and the long-term health of the environment, which can be helped by greater citizen awareness.
Beyond a new bike trail, the committee is looking at linkages with city neighborhoods and other trails in the county, including the Interurban. And there is discussion of water trails for kayakers and the like.
All of this is encouraging. The committee’s ideas should help spur much wider opportunities for residents of Everett and Snohomish County to know and enjoy the rich environments of Port Gardner Bay, the Snohomish River and the islands in the river’s lower delta. The committee can provide ideas that shape an excellent outcome from the city’s updating of its shoreline management plan, now nearing final approval.
Public access can encourage not just care for the environment but quality developments along the city’s shores. In many cities, as Herald reporters noted during the Waterfront Renaissance coverage, public access has gone hand in hand with economic development that is both people-friendly and environmentally healthy.
Much of the energy and inspiration for a bike trail has come from longtime Everett residents John Lindstrom, Bill Belshaw and Drew Nielsen (who is co-chair of the access committee, with Barry Smith). Their bike trips to a number of cities have documented both the value of public access to waterfront cities and the reality that trails can be built despite many industrial obstacles. There’s no doubt, as city planning director Paul Roberts acknowledges, that Everett’s industrial and railroad history will create a number of obstacles here. Nevertheless, where there’s a will, there’s a way. A slide show put together by the three Everett activists shows convincingly that other cities have overcome equal or larger difficulty through determination and good engineering.
In recent decades, various official plans have been drafted to increase the public’s ability to enjoy its shorelines. The access committee is reviewing that work, some of which reflected the ideas of public servants and residents with visions ahead of their times. It will be up to Everett — citizens and leaders alike — to make sure farsighted visions become reality this time.
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